The Memo: Biden’s political problems on Israel rise along with Palestinian death toll

The death toll among Palestinians in the conflict with Israel is rising, and President Biden’s political problems at home are rising along with it.

Biden has offered close to unconditional support for Israel in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 that killed around 1,200 people.

But that position is looking increasingly out of step with many Democratic voters amid Israeli reprisals that have killed around 11,000 Palestinians, displaced more than 1 million people and left Gaza in a dire humanitarian crisis.

Almost six weeks on from the original Hamas attack, there is growing evidence that voters take a more ambivalent view of Israel’s response than the president does — and the trend is especially true for left-of-center Americans.

A new poll released Wednesday found that 56 percent of Democrats — and 38 percent of all Americans — believe Israel’s military response has been “too much.” The Democratic figure rose a startling 21 points since a poll from the same organizations — NPR, PBS NewsHour and Marist — roughly a month before.

The poll also found that 34 percent of Democrats disapprove of the way Biden is handling the conflict.

To be sure, it’s possible that some of those Democrats believe Biden should be even more supportive of Israel. But the working assumption in political circles is that the dissenters are overwhelmingly those who believe Biden has given excessively free rein to the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“This is a terrible miscalculation,” Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia University professor and the author of several acclaimed books on Palestine, told this column. “Participating to this degree with absolute support for Israel is something most Americans don’t agree with.”

There are warning signs flashing for the Biden policy in many other polls, too.

A new Economist/YouGov survey, also released Wednesday, found a plurality of Democrats — 34 percent — believe Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attack has been “too harsh,” compared to 30 percent who believe it has been “about right” and 7 percent who believe it has been “not harsh enough.”

Yet, at the same time, Democrats leaned toward Israel in their overall view of the conflict. 

Twenty-three percent of Democrats in the poll said their sympathies were with the Israelis, against 17 percent who favored the Palestinians. A plurality, 39 percent, said their sympathies were “about equal,” while the remainder declined to express an opinion.

Findings like that point to the arduous political terrain Biden faces on the conflict. Jewish voters are an important bloc of support for Democrats, and they tend to favor Democrats over Republicans by a roughly 2-to-1 margin.

But poll after poll has found younger Democrats tend to be more sympathetic toward the Palestinians. Other important pillars of the Democratic coalition, notably progressive votes and Black voters, also tend to lean more toward the Palestinians than their centrist and white counterparts do.

In the NPR poll, for example, 48 percent of all adults younger than 45 took the view that Israel’s actions had been excessive, whereas only 31 percent of the older-than-45s took the same view. Forty-eight percent of nonwhite adults said Israel’s actions had been too much, compared to 33 percent of white people who felt that way.

The intensity of the feeling around the conflict may end up being just as politically important as the raw numbers. The situation is literally one of life and death for thousands of people. As such, it strikes far more viscerally than many domestic political battles.

Usamah Andrabi, communications director for the Justice Democrats, a progressive group, said despite Israel reportedly killing thousands of children and striking numerous medical facilities, “the president has yet to call for a cease-fire. He refuses to even condemn those actions. And he still demands the Congress send $14 billion in military aid, in weapons, to Israel. I don’t know how anyone can accept that position.”

The Biden administration has tempered its rhetoric to some degree recently, stressing the importance of minimizing civilian casualties and protecting hospitals. The president’s aides also highlight their efforts to get some level of humanitarian assistance into Gaza.

The politics of the issue are anything but simple, as well. Washington has seen huge marches in favor of both the Palestinians and Israel within the past two weeks. The overall American population is more sympathetic to Israel than is the Democratic base, and Republicans are eager to seize on any suggestion that Biden is soft on American foes, such as Hamas’s sponsor, Iran. 

Some Democrats argue the president has taken just the right course.

“I think most presidents would have done the same thing,” said Democratic strategist Jerry Austin, who also noted many Republicans as well as Democrats are united in support for Israel, especially given the horror of the Hamas attacks.

“I don’t see it as a political decision. I see it as a moral decision,” Austin said. “This kind of behavior [from Hamas] has to stop. It isn’t as if they are soldiers fighting soldiers. They went in there and killed women and children.”

But voices more sympathetic to the Palestinians argue that Biden will pay a political price, given the dismay about his position from Arab-Americans, progressives, younger voters and Black voters.

Khalidi said he neither expected people to forget what had occurred nor did he anticipate a change of policy from the administration.

“There will be a lot of votes lost,” he predicted.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.